


A Righ na Guile (Thou King of the Moon)

by SilverButterfly111



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Don't sue me, Fictional Religion & Theology, Healing, I basically make up ancient Moonshadow culture, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pseudo-History, Time Travel, War, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverButterfly111/pseuds/SilverButterfly111
Summary: Desperate for closure after Runaan's Heartbloom flower sinks. Ethari turns to books instead of steel- The Moon Nexus is the only thing that he knows holds power over life and death...and thus..time itself...(Loosely inspired by the Nexflix series "Outlander")
Relationships: Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	1. The World You Left

There are always sacrifices in war. We tell ourselves that we will be able to bear them. Either out of our own pride or because our society demands it of us and expects us to accept them without protest. Without complaints and keep head held high when they happened, I always knew that Runaan could go on a final mission and not return from it. That I could look back on the memory of him without pain and be proud in knowing what he did for his country. That was before fate itself decided to punish me for my naivety.

~~~~~

  
  


The forge lay silent. The weapons slowly collected dust whether they were polished not four days ago or rusting forgotten. Just sooner than everything else. Ethari's world has changed cadence from the ringing of metal to the rustling of parchment. The smell of smoke has turned to decaying paper and old ink. Though he's no less committed to his work. The shadowed alcove of the archives is as far away from prying eyes as the blacksmith can hope to get. He knows they still look at him. Though no one approached since Ethari had left a bruise on someone's jaw. He doesn't remember anything about the altercation. Just that he came back to his frayed senses with a throbbing hand to which he paid no mind. He hardly felt it against the hollowness in his chest.

When the scholars have seen fit to leave him be. All except Broca who brings him bread and new lanterns when he's too preoccupied to realize that the moon-fire has gone out in the previous one. He hardly needs it really. His eyes can see in the dark just fine on their own.

He marked the passage of time by this method. Each new lantern was akin to the next rise of the moon. Another day. Another hour without his heart and he is in no way the same.

Ethari lifted his head when he heard the whisper of cloth and caught the approaching light in the corner of his eye.

Broca set the newest lantern down upon the table but when he looked up from the pages of the book to offer a soft 'thank you' and hand over the old lantern. She doesn't take it.

Instead she set herself up in the lanterns usual place and fixed him with a look that spoke too much of concern for his liking. 

"What?"

"Never you mind me." Broca waved her hand at him dismissively but her green eyes narrowed and hardened to mirror emeralds. "Just trying to figure out what's burning out faster. You or the moon-fire lanterns."

Ethari leaned back in his chair in an attempt to regain something of his amiable behavior. He doesn't want to have the impending conversation with her, or anyone else for that matter; but she at least has earned the right not to be snapped at immediately.

Broca turned her green eyes away from Ethari and lifted a book into her lap. Running her fingers gently across the cracked leather cover.

Ethari is suddenly so caught up in the memory of when he had caught Runaan petting his Moonstrider when no one else had been looking. Or maybe not been bothered to see.

Ethari's next breath leaves his lungs in a shudder. His mind is flooded with them but it's when he stops and recalls such inconsequential things that he truly begins to drown in everything.

"I know what you're doing." The scholar's voice is a whisper but it startled him all the same. She doesn't apologize. "You're looking for hope." Her voice turned sharp and Ethari suspects something in his expression betrayed his impatience to get back to the task at hand.

"It won't work."

Ethari shook his head. Hazel eyes dimmed with grief. Darkness inside and out suddenly spark with fire. "It will. It has-" 

Ethari traced his hand across the page of the book he'd been slowly and carefully examining for the better part of an hour would be his guess. And though it's not from this book Ethari opened his mouth and recited a different passage with the conviction of a mantra. 

_ "The Moon Druids could use the power of the Nexus-" _

__ "-to open a portal to another plain; a shimmering world between life and death." Broca finished. "No need to quote that particular bit of text at me. "I know it just as well as every Moonshadow elf does."

Ethari looked down at the curling scrawl of ink. Bits and pieces of which he can glimpse between his fingers. "It's worked before." He repeated in a reverent whisper. Moving his hand to stare unseeing at the drawing of an elf rendered in ink and white charcoal.

"Those are just legends."

"Legend has to hold some truth-"

Broca's face softened with a sigh as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Ethari had learned that expression far too well this last week and he steeled himself against the blows.

' _ He's gone Ethari, there's nothing you can do for him now except remember him. Honor his sacrifice. Remember him.  _

__ But remembering hurt far worse than he could ever imagine when it's grief tending to fires alongside hope. And now unlike so many times before he doesn't have Rayla to pour his attention into. In one fell strike from the blade of fate he's lost them both.

__ Broca pushed him out of his thoughts. "..Even if you could get across the border. The Nexus is broken. The spell won't work."

Ethari has fallen back into determined silence. Frowning. "I have to try, else it will feel as if I've failed him. I have to at least try for a better goodbye."

Broca's eyes hardened again. "You would leave us without a weaponsmith; in chasing after a ghost you leave your people. You would truly trade one life for nearly five dozen. You have a duty to your people as much as Runaan did." 

Ethari shook his head. "I'm not an assassin, I didn't sell my heart to my country in the price of blood. My heart was always loyal to Runaan above anything else. I realize now that I no longer have the heartbloom lotus to tell me that he still breathes. I am not naive or selfish, I knew there may very well be a mission my heart wouldn't return from. I want- I  _ need _ closure Broca. Even if it is just to say a proper goodbye. A better goodbye.."

Broca lifted her chin and stepped away from the table. "It will only hurt you in the end."

Ethari conceded to her point with a small nod of his head.. "I was never as strong as the rest of you… after this at least I'll be able to live with the pain. And if I die at the hands of a human. Then I share his fate and he has the right to chide me but at least I will be in his arms when he does it."

"The Elders will say you have deserted us as your heart-daughter has."

Ethari finally felt his patience snap, a bow string pulled too taunt. "This has nothing at all to do with Rayla. Ghost me if you must. It's no fate worse than the ghosts that already walk the halls of my home!"

Broca didn't seem at all shocked by the outburst she provoked within him. She inclined her chin. "I wish you well and if it takes foolishness to kill you faster than a blade then I hope it was worth it." She picked up the moon-fire lantern and swept away so quickly that he didn't have time to hear her footsteps or call her back. Not that he would. 

He tucked all of his hope and courage behind the pages of the books he had been reading. Thanking them for offering better comfort then the elves he had known all his life.

He took only a small bit of hope with him so should it go out it wouldn't leave him much colder than he'd already become. And only enough courage to attempt the impossible.

~~~

  
  


The paths of the Silvergrove were silent in the slowly coming gray light that helped hint at the coming dawn outside of the spell that cast the Moonshadow settlement in perpetual darkness.

A gentle breeze whispered through the trees to fill the air with a gentler counterpart to the shocked whispers from the other residents of Silvergrove that caught sight of him when he marched his way home.

Ethari lifted his chin and continued onward. Vivid memories of the night Tiadrin and Lain had been Ghosted played out in his mind and he couldn't suppress the bitter edge of a smile.

' _ What force on this Earth has our blood offended that we shall all be chased and shunned from home?'  _

He shook away the thought and found it far easier to frown to ward away even the slightest bit of conversation. There was a time when he would have been chided for it by Rayla or even a time before that when Lain would have punched him in the shoulder and claimed Runaan was supposed to be the one who scowled like he was suspicious of the world.

Ethari clenched his fist and made a circular motion over his heart; an ancient Moonshadow ritual for warding off the ghosts that he felt at his shoulder.

His footsteps echoed on the steps that circled and led up towards the forge. He braced a hand upon the door to push it open...and ended up tracing the pattern etched into the metal door instead. Exhaling a slow and calming breath as he fought the urge to look over his shoulder. Weighting in his mind which place would hold more pain. Hardening his heart to steel.

He needed a heartbloom lotus. There was no other place to find one. Or make one if he must- The ones in the pond must stay undisturbed as tribute to the fallen. Though dead far from home a piece of them was to remain here...that thought and ritual was little comfort to him now... 

Ethari needed to face the memories that awaited him behind this door, just as anywhere else if there was any hope to get Runaan back in any way at all besides the thoughts that taunted him.

He swung open the doors with their heavy hinges and slipped inside. A shadow disappearing into more shadows.

He blinked. His mouth parting in shock to find no illusions of memories coming to greet him behind the door. Just metal and a thin layer of dust all of his own making.

The heavy silver chest was tucked underneath a comer of the long table that wrapped around the entire back wall.

Ethari knelt on the floor to draw the chest out from underneath the darkness of the table. He couldn't help the smile that fought its way onto his face to see the familiar swirling pattern on its lid. 

It used to rest at the foot of their bed before Runaan had accused him of being far too sentimental. 

"There you are." Ethari whispered a melancholy greeting to the memory he had been expecting as well as the intricate metal flower he held in his hands. Picked from the chest from all the others whilst his mind was elsewhere. Its teal gemstone the color of Rune's eyes…And just as dark and dull- without the glow of a heartbeat to light it.

Ethari tried to push away thoughts of those beautiful eyes going dark.

He stood and didn't bother to brush off the dust from his knees. Only because that meant he would have to let go of the flower. The glint of metal in the rising light of dawn from the still open doorway was far too tempting but at least with that he could still hold the metal lotus in one palm. A sword gets strapped to the belt at his waist. Two knives. One slipped into the worn leather on the inside of his boot.

_ 'Arm yourself. The smart ones will see the sword and walk away, the dumb ones won't suspect you to have more if your ever disarmed of your sword.' _

__ Ethari could hear Runaan's voice clear as moonlight.

_ 'Must you suspect that everyone you meet is going to hold a blade to your chest or throat?' _

__ Ethari heard his own reply now.

' _ Well yes, that way you're either right or pleasantly surprised.' _

__ Ethari pressed the Heartbloom to his chest. Close enough for one of the petal points to jab his chest through the clothing of his shirt.

He fled the forge. Shutting the door in a vain attempt to keep the memories from following him.

"Home." He told himself in a bracing manner. Looking down at the flower.

_ 'I'm going to bring one of us home…one way or another..' _

_ ~~~~ _

  
  


The house was nearly as dark as the forge if not as dusty and neglected looking. Though more memories awaited him here

The echoes of Rayla's childhood laughter and insistent questions chased him toward the bedroom. He turned his head and caught gazes with the obsidian nightfox figurine- Runaan's birthday present from last year- watching guard over a wilting glass and wire willow leaf he had craved this year for Runaan's birthday when his husband hadn't returned.

The bedroom….Moon above...if He thought the rest of the house had been awful. The bedroom was twice that. Elves had an afterlife but it was humans who believed in concepts so extreme as a heaven and a hell.

Ethari couldn't tell which one this was supposed to be. Perhaps he'd been in the dark too long and was going mad.

Ethari pressed his head against the closed door and closed his eyes against the flood but that only made it worse. He could feel the ghost of Runaan's touch… _ gentle calloused fingers tracing the lines of his neck and throat back down towards his collarbone… _

Ethari's breath hitched on a sob and he bit down on his tongue to keep the sound within his throat. Pushing himself away from the door and shaking his head to clear it. He stepped into the shared confides of the closet. Fingers brushing gently over fabric and cloth. He tugged at the hem of the cloak rather more violently than was nesscary but he's got far too much on his mind to consider being gentle with it or with himself for that matter.

_ 'You never should have let him go. You should have known he was in danger of not coming back. You shouldn't have let Rayla go either. That's where things went wrong I'm sure. He was too busy protecting Rayla and he didn't see someone. He missed something. He's not careless, but he cares about us...we would have been his first priority. Not the mission. Rayla wasn't ready for a mission….let alone  _ this  _ mission. Why didn't I argue more with him on that matter? _

No time for that now. What's done is done but it may not be too late to fix things.

The cloak still held a hint of Runaan's scent in the folds of the fabric. One of the very few things that still does and hasn't fallen prey to the rhythm of his fingers back when the lotus flower had first sank into the pond and he'd been worried he'd forget. Trying to pull Runaan out of everything as much as he could just to bring him here; but there was no spell for Moonshadows to pull people across the world. He was no Skywing Mage. He could not utter a spell of love and lighthearted intention to grow wings and fly. He'd thought he wouldn't have been brave enough to run either. But as he set the Heartbloom lotus on the bed and kept his eyes upon it as he wrapped himself in his husband's fading scent. He felt the steel of his heart harden with each breath.

He could run. He had just not been brave enough to, but here in the shadowed corners of his home. Alone with the memory of Runaan's love and the weight of his love's cloak around his shoulders Ethari felt his husband's strength and courage seeping into his limbs. Into heart and mind and body.

He could run, even if it meant never coming back to this place. He'd make a home with Runaan if he could find him..or make a different one without him just to have a chance to know that his heart had been welcomed by his kin into the afterlife.

Ethari pulled the hood of the cloak over his snow colored hair and his horns. If he was going to risk sneaking into enemy Territory he needed the guise of a human. He had nowhere near the skill of a moon mage and he feared to waste time looking for one whom wouldn't help him anyway. He couldn't trust anyone else with the knowledge of his plot. This was the best he could do...well this and some food. He wasn't entirely foolish. It was at least the better of a day's walk to the canyon of the Sun King and just beyond the Moonstone path. If he was quick and ran into no trouble...then...well it was nearly a two weeks journey to the Moon Nexus on foot.

He wouldn't- He couldn't risk the life of his Shadowpaw. No the only life that should fall prey to his heart broken madness was his own.

"I'll find you, my heart. Even if it is in death that we next meet…"


	2. A Righ na Greine (Thou King of the Sun)

There is a part of the Moonshadow oath that states that the Moon is a reflection of the Sun. Every Moonshadow elf knows this part of the oath if not the rest of it. We know it down in our bones, it is the nature of the natural world. Thus it is our nature. We reflect the Sun in all things even if the Sunfire elves are but our distant kin. 

  
  


~~~

  
  


The canyon of Sol Regem is empty barren rock. Even the river that had once ran through the earth fast and determined enough to carve the stone has dried long along in the face of The Sun King's wrath. Ethari had remembered the stories both he and Runaan had told to a younger Rayla but it seemed as if Ethari had misjudged the bitterness in the former King of Dragons.

The sun was nearly fading by the time Ethari reached the border of the canyon mouth. He debated whether to confront the dragon in the light of day so as to show respect toward his standing in the natural order. A dragonic king was still a king if a former and resentful one. 

The shadow that appeared from within a massive crevice in the stone shook the earth as he walked and though Ethari could not see his eyes thanks to the magma that marred his face. He had the distinct impression he was being not just looked at..but  _ seen…. _

__ He was even more startled when he felt a brush of magic against his Arcanum; as if the sun had reached its zenith to focus all of its heat on his skin. He shuffled his feet in discomfort and thought of the shade and shadows all around him the places that offered safety and comfort if only he could reach them.

His own Arcanum reached out to seek his safety for him but he found he couldn't move.

"Approach."

The voice that spoke echoed in his mind with the harsh depth of the stone around him.

His choice had been made for him then. Ethari swallowed the fear that threatened to pull a sound from his throat. Setting his shoulders with the faint rustling of fabric as he obeyed the word of the Archdragon. Pressing his knees into the hard scorched Earth as he knelt.

The heavy shadow of the dragon's head blocked out the crescent of the moon above and the small fires of the stars. He was held in darkness and yet he felt no trace of fear that had threatened to overtake him only moments before. The hot breath that washed over him bore none of the harsh heat of fire he had imagined would engulf him. 

Sol Regem withdrew his body. Scales of his tail sweeping the earth with a rasping hiss. 

Ethari felt his shoulders tense despite his best effort to remain calm. He risked glancing at the dragon's face. Dark in its own shadow.

The head of the Archdragon lowered again.

"You were not who I was expecting."

Ethari lifted his head. Equally as shocked.

"You were expecting someone?"

"Yes," Sol Regem's tail brushed against the earth again as he curled it closer. "Tell me where is the Shadow of the Blade and Arrow, Defender of Xadia, Reaper of Human Blood? The elf whom you bear the scent of." 

_ Runaan. He's expecting Runaan…  _

Ethari doesn't know what about this encounter is more shocking. The fact that Sol Regem knows Runaan or the fact that his husband's reputation apparently perseeds him to the point of having titles among the Archdragons. Neither should really shock him as much as it does. The Dragon Queen herself had requested this mission of Runaan and his detail of assassins when there is an entire Guild spread throughout the settlements for her to have her pick of.

Ethari might have been pleased. If he wasn't so lost in his grief. The fingers of his hand brush against the clasp of the cloak. Before he can convince himself of sentimental value. He lets the fabric cascade down his shoulders. He takes it one step further to correct the unintended lie and steps away from the cloak as it falls to the earth of the canyon.

"I meant no disrespect to you by trying to walk in your presence in the guise of another. And I mean no further disrespect but I can't answer your question."

"Surely you of all elves would know the outcome of your mate."

"You knew-"

The Sun dragon huffed out another breath; Ethari has never had a conversation with a dragon to piece together if the creature was offended, amused or perhaps just smelling him again.

"His scent is on your skin, faint though he is with you. He often carries your scent in his hands. You make his metal; do you not?"

"Well, yes but...a lot of good that actually did him." There's another deep rumbling that shakes the earth. Though Ethari thinks that this one may be softer.

"You speak of him in past tense."

"...He's dead.. " 

"I suspected as much. And I highly doubt that your intention was to abbanon the haven of the Silvergrove to come and inform me of this unfortunate but unsurprising fate. You carry the scent of steel. If venagence is what you seek then it is my choice to let you pass."

Ethari paused as the shadow of Sol Regem's tail was swept aside.

"Just that?" Ethari considered the unobscured

path ahead of him and for the first time he felt uncertainty come over him. He stepped away to retrieve the cloak but held it in his hands. Examining the threads of dark green that ran through the black. Vines, rivers the next, pathways….

"Why do you help me?"

"The Assassins; Sons and Daughters of the Moon have always been the outreaching claws of mine and my kins' wrath since the division of the land. Though softer and quieter in their ways rather than flame or thunder they spill blood in the name of Xadia and the Queen of Storms. They reflect us and our will. I prevent humans from entering our land further. I do not have qualms about elves coming and going as they believe to test their steel. There is a strength to you as well. Otherwise The Shadow of the Blade and Arrow would not have seen fit to make you his own….go now while the light of the Moon is still in the sky and have courage to spill blood when the time for it comes and may you return where even he could not."

Ethari fought the urge to shake his head.

_ We both come back or not at all… _

However impossible that seemed even though he was further from home and closer to hope then he had ever been. He tugged the cloak around his shoulders and took the next step on his chosen path.

The last of the sun fading behind the walls of the canyon and the mountains in the distance pushed him onward. He may yet have an entire night to reach and cross the Moonstone path before next sunrise. Or else he would have no choice but to stop and waste an entire day with something as idle as sleep. He's already gone one day without in order to reach here.

If he stops now there will still be time to turn back and he can't do that without an even deeper regret.

The deeper shadow of Sol Regem's wings fell over him once more and he instinctively froze.

"Tread carefully, Ceàrdair. The path you walk may be more dangerous than even you realize." Ethari's only answer was to take another step out of the shadow of the Sun, into the light of the Moon.

The barren landscape from Sol Regem's canyon cut a scar across the earth to the volcano that split the continent in half.

Nothing of the Earth could grow for miles and miles of harsh stone. The only other path across the border was The Breach and that was under the careful watch of the Sunfire elves. Try as he might. Ethari couldn't imagine that the land had been anything else before. Though it must've been.

What had grown here in this stretch of land before the Sun and Earth Archdragons of old had awoken the dominant volcanoes. Perhaps he'd find better records of such events in Lux Aera's vaults. Though the Moonshadow scholars were faithful in their record keeping there was very little factual information that he had managed to find that far back as far as written records went. Understable but frustrating nonetheless. 

His feet cut a steady if somewhat exhausted pace as the moon shone overhead.

His mind is far too preoccupied with running though every bit of information Runaan had given him in second-handed lecturers, frustrated tangents, weary half explanations when he'd finally reached his considerably difficult-to-reach limitations. 

This. This is life and death.

Between one step and the next he's considering falling back. Living with that shame.

His words to Broca echoing inside of his head.

_ 'I was never as strong as the rest of you.' _

__ ' _ There  _ is a strength to you as well _.'  _ And if Runaan can find something, if an Archdragon can see something in Ethari. Something that makes him capable of standing here. Of facing his grief without wishing to bury himself further in the darkness. Then he has to simply find more than one thing he has lost.

~~~

The sun has reached out to paint the sky with yellow and pink brushstrokes and Ethari can only watch from the shadow of the stone archway as his path forward fades.

He doesn't feel it when his fingers dig so sharply into the stone of the archway.

It will be back. So why does he feel such a sinking despair at the sight of that soft blue glow making room for the sun to warm the stone. While Ethari's chest threatened to freeze over once more.

' _ Sleep.'  _

Ethari felt his ears twitch. An outward tell of the shock that he's too exhausted to paint across his face. It's not Runaan's voice. It Tiadrin's.

She's standing not in front of him but on the path. Her voice carrying as if from a great distance. It reaches further still..into his mind the way that ghosts always do.

He shook his head at the ghost.

_ 'You must sleep.'  _ Her voice insisted.

He can't. He has to find Runaan and if he goes asleep there's always the chance he won't wake up.

_ 'Runaan is asleep.'  _ She says that like it should be a comfort to him but it makes him shudder.

_ Runaan is dead! _

Tia flinched and shook her head as the thought he might as well have yelled at her.

_ 'Not dead. This is not death. We are asleep.' _

__ "You're safe?"

Nothing. Nothing for a long moment.

_ 'We are asleep...fate willing we shall wake again.'  _

She's just. Standing there and he can't come to her. His legs won't let him take another step now that he's stopped and this is what he feared.

_ 'I can go no further.'  _ The stone underneath her feet sank beneath the lava and she didn't flinch.  _ 'I must return.'  _ She began to fade before his eyes.

"Speak to Runaan; Tell him-"

_ 'I cannot. Runaan sleeps Elsewhere. Close, but Elsewhere. It is best if he sleeps for now. Sleep Ethari. It is where the worst pain resides but where the mind can heal as easily as it can break. Sleep and may you wake before the pain becomes too much.' _

  
  


_ ~~~ _

  
  


Ethari felt wood beneath his bare feet. There is the comfortable crackling of the fire. There is darkness outside of the window. There is a different cold in the dead of winter. A cold that goes past the skin and tries to sink into your bone. The cold that kills.

Ethari knelt down by the fire. He's wrapped up in Runaan's cloak. He can feel his husband's presence near him and he reaches out to find him. 

When it was so simple to do such a thing. When he was an arm's length away or less. 

"You're cold!"

The pale skin of his love's shoulder resembles old marble in all regards. Pale, impossibly cold and scarred.

"I am not cold."

"Come off it, you'll freeze to death. Here." Ethari's fingers move to unclasp the cloak from around his shoulders and hand it to his husband. Runaan moved unnaturally slowly to stop him. Longer fingers falling over Ethari's own. 

"I've no need. I feel no cold, I feel nothing."

Startled Ethari blinked. He felt his face twist into concern.

"Nothing?"

Teal blue eyes lifted the scarce few inches to search amber. Ethari felt his breath catch in his throat. His love had never looked at him in such a way that made him fear for his life. Was that the way he looked when he was about to kill? 

It was nothing. Not even rage.

"Nothing."

Ethari felt he couldn't move or speak. His one hand is still on Runaan's shoulder. "Rune, it's alright to feel something."

"I cannot.." it's with a slow effort that Runaan's expression started to shift into something that wasn't so flat. "It was cold...at first, but I don't feel that anymore. Cold is for the body. Warmth is for the body...I have none. I feel nothing."

"If you have no body, then why can I touch you?" Ethari curled his fingers around Runaan's shoulder. Dug his nails so hard into flesh that Runaan should have flinched, should have moved. Ethari had considerable strength. And he was putting it all into that touch. It should have  _ hurt  _ him.

Runaan didn't move.

"I have a body for you to touch because this is something that you would understand." 

Ethari didn't understand any of it.

"Don't you know me?" Ethari didn't understand. Runaan wasn't cold. Not this cold. Not towards him.

"I know you." Runaan answered. And  _ there _ . There deep underneath the  _ nothing _ was maybe..maybe regret.

"I know you, and even still I feel nothing."

"...If I find you? Will you feel again?"

"If you find me?"

"Yes."

Just the faintest flickering of the firelight reached Runaan's eyes.

"...Perhaps...and if I do not?"

"You will." Ethari doesn't know if he's trying to comfort himself or Runaan.

Silence fell….

"If you stay here much longer. You'll get cold."

"I don't want to leave you."

"Go back to sleep, I'll be alright. I feel nothing."

That's not reassuring. He opened his mouth-

-but all that came out was a sob.

…

…

The dream faded and Ethari came back. He wasn't sure when he had ended up on the stone but he was laying on his side in the then slowly lengthening shadow of the archway. 

Ethari pressed his nose into the fabric of the cloak to inhale Runaan's fading scent but also to muffle the anguished scream that clawed its way out of his throat.

The sun is fading but the moon has not revealed his path yet. He's forced to sit and pick apart the dream until exhaustion sucked away any energy he might have gained from the action of sleeping.

He managed to stand of his own accord as the night finally brought the moon back to be his guide and quiet companion.

There's no voice in his head but his own as he placed his feet upon the first stone of the path that his ancestors walked back into Xadia.

" _ ' Tread carefully, Ceàrdair. The path you walk may be more dangerous than even you realize.' _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sol Regem plays favorites because he's that type of dragon...Actual plot starts next chapter. I swear.
> 
> Also.
> 
> Ceàrdair is Scottish Gaelic for Craftsman but?like? It's the internet so grain of salt is probably wise.


End file.
